


Joy and Jealousy

by Quipxotic



Series: The Spy and the Time Lord [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), UNIT: the New Series (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet, Friends to Enemies, Jealousy, M/M, Manipulation, Murder, Pre-Episode: s10e01 The Pilot, Pre-Episode: s12e01 Spyfall Part 1, Present Tense, Spoilers for Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, Texting, Unhealthy Relationships, United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (Doctor Who), Unrequited Love, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22339537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quipxotic/pseuds/Quipxotic
Summary: The Master’s plans are going swimmingly, until the Doctor’s texts interrupt an important meeting.
Relationships: Josh Carter/Petronella Osgood, Twelfth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: The Spy and the Time Lord [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600243
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	Joy and Jealousy

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if this qualifies as "Doctor/Master" or "Doctor & Master" but after switching the tags back a forth a few times since posting, I'm going to leave it as it is and hope it's accurate.

Buzz.

Buzz.

Buzz.

Buzz.

Across the room, eyes turn to stare as the Master puts a hand over his pocket to muffle the sound. Although his phone is on silent, the vibration of the alerts seems loud in the tense silence of the oversight committee meeting. Anger flushes his features, but he plays it off as embarrassment, in keeping with his role as O. 

Sitting on his right, Osgood leans in to whisper, “Umm, you might want to turn that off.”

“Before our bosses or yours lose their patience,” Josh Carter adds far less quietly from the seat on Osgood’s right, “and you find yourself up there answering the MOD’s questions.” 

For the third time today, the Master pictures the slow, painful death he’s wanted to gift Captain Carter with since their first meeting several years ago. But this time his point is well taken. Kate Stewart, Colonel Shindi, and C are all glaring at the Master from their seats in front of the audience. Without looking, he reaches into his pocket and turns off his phone.

— —

“We’ll speak about this later,” C says after the meeting, dismissing him with wave of his hand. 

“Yes sir, of course.” The Master keeps his eyes down and shoulders hunched, the picture of a downtrodden civil servant who has gotten on his supervisor’s bad side. Internally, his feelings are mixed. The meeting went badly for UNIT and MI6’s Horizon Watcher program, for which he’s the chief analyst, and that means everything is going exactly according to the Master’s plans. However, his satisfaction is tempered by the frustration of spending a whole day being insulted and disregarded by these lesser beings. He longs for the feel of a Tissue Compression Eliminator in his hand and the sound it makes as it kills. 

“That could have gone better,” Carter says, stating the obvious as usual. The junior members of UNIT join him as the committee, witnesses, and audience disperse in various directions. “I’ve rarely seen Kate that angry.”

“Or Vikram,” Osgood adds, “although they both covered it well.” She sighs. “It’s so unfair. The committee members weren’t there! They didn’t see what we were dealing with.” She gestures to include O in her statement. “If we hadn’t acted, we would be in the midst of another cyber-invasion right now.”

“That’s just it,” the Master agrees, “they weren’t there. And because we were successful in repulsing the attack, there’s no evidence there actually was one.”

“No evidence!” Osgood shushes Josh and he lowers his voice. “We have witnesses-” 

“Which only matters if the committee believe them,” the Master counters. 

“How anyone in the Ministry of Defense can suspect Colonel Shindi or Kate Stewart, of all people, of lying after both of their long and disguised careers-” Osgood gives him a knowing look and shifts her weight nervously from foot to foot. “Yes well,” he adds in a whisper only the three of them can hear, “that’s different. That’s lying for the good of national and international security. And that's not even the case this time.“

“They and UNIT are victims of your own success.” The Master pats Josh’s arm, keeping up the appearance of friendly commiseration. The young captain twitches uncomfortably under his touch, which just encourages the Master to do it again. “It’s been ages since we’ve seen a large scale alien incident do significant damage. People get complacent. The recent political shifts in this country and elsewhere haven’t helped either.”

“Speaking of politics,” Josh rounds angrily on him, “your boss was no help at all. In fact, he seemed determined to undermine UNIT at every turn.”

“It’s…complicated.” The Master gives a tired and well-rehearsed shrug. “MI6 has always had a difficult time squaring the reality of aliens with their views on the global situation.”

Carter pokes his finger into the Master’s chest. “Maybe if you were doing a better job, that wouldn’t be the case!”

“That’s not fair, Josh.” Osgood steps in to separate them. “O’s doing the best he can. He’s only one person. He doesn’t have institutional support like we do at UNIT.”

“Horizon Watcher has always been the red-headed step-child of MI6 initiatives. Underfunded, understaffed, and barely tolerated.” The Master sighs. “That said, Captain Carter is right - maybe there’s more I can do?”

“Just don’t get fired,” Osgood warns him. “It won’t do any of us any good if you and Horizon Watcher get shut down completely.” 

He smiles at her concern, knowing that both events are integral parts of his plan. “I’ll do my best.” Osgood returns his grin, much to Carter’s evident annoyance. Jealousy, the Master observes, his smile widening, is such a ridiculous if predictable human emotion. Humans are, in general, such silly creatures; it’s a mystery why the Doctor likes them so much. Then again, the Master admits to himself, people often value cuteness over intelligence in their pets.

“Who was calling you,” Osgood asks, interrupting his thoughts. “Did you ever get a chance to check?”

“I didn’t.” He pulls out his phone and turns it on. Once it powers up and he unlocks it, the Master sees the long string of text messages. “Oh,” he chuckles, “it’s just the Doctor.”

“The Doctor,” Osgood squeaks, impressed. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no,” he reassures her. “It’s nothing important. He’s teaching at some college this term and he texts me when he’s bored…which is pretty much all the time now.”

“The Doctor.” Josh raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you two were close.”

“We’ve texted off and on since we met.” The Master slips his phone back into his pocket. “You remember, back during that incident in the tunnels? The training exercise?”

“I remember,” Josh winces, rubbing his arm as if feeling a old wound. He notices Osgood’s expression and touches her shoulder gently. “Hey, why the long face?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” She tries to hide her disappointment with a smile. “I’ve met him a few times - the Doctor, I mean - but only briefly, in passing during a crisis. I’d give anything be able to have an actual conversation with him. Pick his brain, you know? He knows so much that could expand our understanding of our own planet, much less the universe. And,” she blushes, “I mean, he’s the Doctor. Who wouldn’t want to talk with him?”

“I’ll mention it to him,” the Master says, gently twisting the metaphorical knife. “Although honestly, we don’t talk about science or space or anything like that. It’s more…chatting about our lives. Speaking of which,” he pats his pocket with an apologetic smile, “I better reply before he ramps up to doing something more dramatic to get my attention.” Nodding his goodbyes, he wanders away from them, keenly aware of their whispered conversation behind him. 

Osgood is actually properly clever, for a human. Flaunting something in front of her that she so clearly wants for herself warms the Master’s hearts. As for Carter, he would have been dead long ago if it weren’t for his Auton augmented skeleton. Once the Master has a chance to study that, he’ll finally give the man a fitting and final end. 

Although, perhaps he should rethink that, he muses, hurrying from the building on the way back to his flat. Unrequited love can be such a useful tool and, while the destruction of UNIT is currently going according to the Master’s plans, it’s wise to have a backup plan. The Master smiles to himself, wondering what Josh Carter would give up or betray to protect Osgood. 

— —

He doesn’t check the Doctor’s messages on his way home. Delayed gratification isn’t typically the Master’s style, but it’s something he’s had to get used to over the last few years and he’s getting better at waiting. 

Once in his flat, he pours himself a glass of fine bourbon and hurries to his bedroom. He sips slowly as he opens the door to the flat’s walk-in closet and steps through, into his TARDIS. The ship hums quietly in welcome, but he ignores it in favor of a deep, luxuriant leather couch in the corner of his control room. Placing the glass of bourbon on a nearby table, the Master curls up on the couch and finally checks his phone.

 _“How do you humans do it,”_ the Doctor’s first message reads. _“Live in one time and place, everything happening in the proper order?”_

_“I suppose you don’t have a choice, but still - don’t you get bored? How do you tolerate the smallness, the meaninglessness of day after day of not much happening without wanting to crawl out of your own skins?”_

“By murdering people,” the Master mutters, sipping the bourbon, “like any sensible Time Lord would.” 

_“But maybe you’re used to it? I mean, your lives are so pitifully short-”_

_“Am I being insulting? I should ask Nardole, although he’s already been right once today and I hate to encourage him.”_

_“I have done this before. Lived on Earth like this. Although the first time it was less of a choice and more forced exile as punishment.”_

_“It felt just like this though. Like torture.”_

_“I am being insulting, aren’t I? Sorry.”_

There is a break of a few minutes before the texts resume. 

_“Still it wasn’t all bad.”_

_“I met the Brigadier, for one thing. Have I told you about Alistair? He is…he was Kate Stewart’s father. Head of UNIT for years. A good man, one of my best friends, although we didn’t have the most auspicious of beginnings.”_

_“I’ll have to tell you some stories about him sometime. Such a stubborn, honorable, loyal, impatient man. I think you would have liked him.”_

The Master snorts at that. He remembers Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart very well and hates him even more than he hates the man’s daughter. Two of the Master’s chief regrets are that the Brigadier died of natural causes and that he therefore isn’t alive to see the destruction of his beloved UNIT. Still, the Master will happily make do with dear Kate, Osgood, and Carter…and the Doctor eventually, once he finds out. Smiling in anticipation, he returns to reading the messages. 

_“You aren’t replying. I can’t imagine what you could be doing that’s more important than talking with me.”_

_“Unless you’re in a meeting. You seem to be in a lot of those.”_

_“Pointless wastes of time, in my experience, but you humans seem to like them.”_

_“I still don’t understand how your job, the one that requires you to sit in so many pointless meetings, is more interesting to you than traveling with me.”_

_“I mean, if I were traveling, which I’m not for several important reasons I can’t talk about.”_

_“But still, passing up traveling in the TARDIS for meetings? It’s out of character for someone as un-boring as you.”_

_“One day, maybe. Now there’s something to look forward to.”_

The Master hugs himself, grinning with delight. It’s a thrill every time the Doctor asks him to travel with him, and he’s been asking with increasing regularity since River Song’s death. In moments of loneliness, it’s now the Master he turns to for comfort. A hungry sort of joy runs through him at the thought, warming the Master more than the bourbon he’s drinking ever could. He’s waited several lifetimes for this feeling and he intends to savor it.

The Master scrolls down to read a final series of texts.

_“Have I told you that I’ve been writing music?”_

_“It’s something to pass the time in-between lectures. Just something I’m playing with.”_

_“I wrote a song for you. I hope you like it.”_

_“And if you don’t, don’t tell me and we’ll never speak of it again.”_

Attached is a sound file. Eagerly, the Master touches the icon and the file begins playing. 

The sound of a solo electric guitar drifts from the small speakers of his phone. The song begins slow and tranquil, but rises steadily until it becomes a vibrant melody - a sound filled with the joy of discoveries shared with a trusted companion. The Master is entranced. This is his. His alone. A gift for him from _his_ Doctor.

Then the melody changes, picking up and riffing off themes the Master recognizes from popular Earth films about spies and political intrigue. He goes cold with realization that quickly turns into rage. 

This isn’t for him. The Doctor created this for O. 

Sweet O. Lovable O. 

The Master sees his fatal mistake: he’s forgotten the game. He’s started enjoying the conversations as if they were for and about him, his own self, the Master, rather than some weak, temporary facsimile. He’s gotten lost in the pleasure of the Doctor’s esteem, forgetting it’s based on a lie the Master created. 

He’s never wanted to kill one of his own persona’s so much before and the futility of that burns through him, turning his previous happiness to ashes. The Master throws the phone across the control room, barely registering the sound of the screen cracking as it lands. Storming to the console, he flips switches and pounds his fist on buttons, wrenching his TARDIS into the vortex. He selects a world a random and lands, grabbing his TCE off the console as he stalks outside into the heart of an unsuspecting city. 

Two hours later, the place is in ruins. Fire licks at empty homes. Bodies, some full-sized and others shrunk to the size of dolls, litter the streets. 

His anger somewhat soothed, the Master returns to the TARDIS. He closes the doors behind him, blocking out the blaring warning sirens, and breathes deeply in the silence of his ship. He approaches the phone, still laying face down on the floor. He picks it up, turning it over gently and touching the home button. It turns on, damaged but operational. 

Slowly, the Master types out a reply, teeth gritted. “It’s lovely, Doctor. I’m speechless.”

“It’s inspiring,” he adds after a moment, lingering on the memories of the actions he just committed. “Thank you for sharing it with me. Maybe someday I’ll take you up on that trip in the TARDIS.”

He closes with, “Sweet dreams, Doctor,” and puts the phone on his TARDIS console beside his TCE. 

Then he sets the coordinates for another random planet.


End file.
